[Mageia-dev] systemd + separate /var (was Re: more testing for systemd: defaulting to it)

Mon Sep 12 16:36:41 CEST 2011

'Twas brillig, and Sander Lepik at 12/09/11 07:22 did gyre and gimble:
+> 08.09.2011 16:53, Thierry Vignaud kirjutas:
+>> Hi
+>>
+>> In order to got more testing for systemd, I'm considering switching
+>> the installer to:
+>> - install it
+>> - default to it (aka add "init=/bin/systemd")
+>>
+>> WDYT?
+>>
+>> See you
+> I got another problem. This time with /var. For two systems i have
+> created /var as a separate volume on LVM. And systemd can't start /var.
+> It's complaining that some deps failed. So long i only noticed different
+> types of loggers that won't start. Also complaining about failed deps.
+> So is there a loop? Loggers won't start as they want to log on /var and
+> /var can't be mounted as it needs some logger to log it?! I'll try to
+> test it more on VM but so long it seems that separated /var is causing
+> boot problems :S (one system didn't start at all (and has weird
+> repeating errors:
+> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4210594/IMG_20110911_230902.jpg ) so i have to
+> revert back to sysvinit).
+
+OK, so unless you use rsyslog, I think there could easily be a logging loop.
+
+I packaged the latest rsyslog with all the systemd goodness a couple
+weeks back so it should be cool now.
+
+You should definitely mount /var before starting your logger, (systemd
+will happily pass over any accumulated log output to the actual logger
+when it starts - well not quite systemd, passing it over, but it happens
+magically anyway!)
+
+So the question is "Why isn't /var mounted early enough?".
+
+I'm not really in a position to think about why this is right now, but
+suffice to say, the auto mounter in systemd should really automatically
+mount /var as soon as it's needed, so perhaps the logger is somehow
+starting before the automounter?
+
+
+If you do: "man systemd.special"  and look for info about
+local-fs.target, it contains some interesting info about how /etc/fstab
+is processed.
+
+Primarily it needs the "auto" keyword in the options. Perhaps if you add
+"auto" to the mount options (should be harmless for non-systemd) then
+things will work fine?
+
+Worth a shot.
+
+Col
+
+
+
+
+-- 
+
+Colin Guthrie
+mageia(at)colin.guthr.ie
+http://colin.guthr.ie/
+
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